History DesignatedHero / VideoGames

* PlayedWith in ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos''. Kalas is a complete [=Jerkass=] for a good portion of the game, and he only helps people when it coincides with his interests. Then, a little over halfway through the game, it's revealed that [[spoiler:he was EvilAllAlong. After you fight him, however, he pulls a HeelFaceTurn and spends the rest of the game as a much better person.]]

* Kalista, the main protagonist of ''VideoGame/TheLastResurrection'', is a succubus who often rapes and murders people. In the novelizations made by the game's creator, she goes several steps further and murders civillians for sexual pleasure. Added to this is Kalista's maternal insest and her misandry-driven motives. You'd ''think'' she was intended to be an overly edgy NinetiesAntiHero, but the author fully intended Kalista as a hero saving the world from the Christian church (depicted here as a ReligionOfEvil). The only person in the whole game who ever objects to Kalista's constant rape and murder is Jesus, who is reduced to a StrawCharacter who himself rapes and murders people.

* In ''Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms'', you are straight up killing people. No joke. A lot of people. While there are in fact people you fight nonlethally (mostly drunks and plot-important NPCs who need to survive to encounter later), most of the more recent questlines explicitly required "Enemies Defeated" instead of "___ Killed", and you often do have at least a legitimately heroic reason to get to your end destination, it does seem simply walking through a random city on a peaceful day will involve killing - ostensibly in self-defense - hundreds of people and animals. (This is a holdover from Crusaders of the Lost Idols, a previous game this was originally based on, which had a more surreal setting in which swarms of random and often abstract enemies everywhere was less jarring.)

* The protagonist of ''[[VideoGame/RoadBlaster Road Avenger]]'', who causes what is probably millions of dollars in collateral damage and kills a few innocent people in his attempt to avenge the death of his wife, which was caused by him swerving into a rock in the desert to avoid the chaotic biker villains.

* Alphonse Lohrer in ''VideoGame/TacticsOgreTheKnightOfLodis'' in that he works for the evil Lodis Empire that seeks to take control of the island of Ovis even though he does question Rictor's motive of taking the spear Longicolnis for the Empire. [[spoiler:He is revealed to be Lancelot Tartare, a main antagonist in the next chapter, ''Let Us Cling Together''.]]
* PlayedWith in ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos''. Kalas is a complete [=Jerkass=] for a good portion of the game, and he only helps people when it coincides with his interests. Then, a little over halfway through the game, it's revealed that [[spoiler:he was EvilAllAlong. After you fight him, however, he pulls a HeelFaceTurn and spends the rest of the game as a much better person.]]

* Nilin of ''VideoGame/RememberMe'', the noble terrorist who kills her way through Neo-Paris on the word of someone she's never met, even after declaring how much she doesn't like or trust him. [[spoiler: She ends the game having released all the stored memories in the Memoreyes database to their owners, declaring that we need our memories, even the painful ones, to be ourselves... except she also declares she has the power to play God by editing people's memories to be whatever she wants, at least one instance of which being implied to result in the bombing of a hospital.]]
* ''VideoGame/StarcraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm'': Kerrigan has been accused of this by some fans; while there is no denying Mengsk is an evil bastard who needs to be overthrown and she is more than justified in her hatred of him, a lot of her actions during the campaign, such as [[ShootTheDog killing the Protoss on Kaldir]], [[InferredHolocaust routinely ordering her brood mothers to invade Dominion planets]] or attacking Protoss soldiers and innocent bestial races she seemingly has no beef with at all for the sake of Abathur's experiments, feel excessive and villainous, painting the conflict in an EvilVsEvil light rather than the BlackAndGreyMorality it was supposed to come off as. Granted, she ''is'' supposed to be an AntiHero, and she does get mostly better as the campaign goes on, but there is ''a lot'' of debate on how justified the multitude of death she caused trying to reach Mengsk was, and some consider [[StrawmanHasAPoint he was right to call her out for it]]. This caused an AuthorsSavingThrow to be done in ''Legacy of the Void'', making Kerrigan more outwardly heroic in that game.
* While Mike Dawson of the first ''VideoGame/DarkSeed'' was a competent hero, he has gotten so much worse in the sequel. He is whiny, constantly asking awkward questions, comes of as a ManChild at some parts, starts to act unjustifiably antagonistic near the end of the game (and has dialogue choices to make him come off as even worse of a human being), and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking cannot win simple carnival games without cheating!]] At one point, Mike even unintentionally lets a man die through his incompetence by [[spoiler: not bringing him his medicine because he was too weak to push the anvil off its cooler and too dumb to just ask somebody to give him a hand with lifting it]]. And this is supposed to be the ''good guy''. It has even been theorized that the dev team may have it in for the real Mike Dawson and made him a LoserProtagonist on purpose. [[spoiler: To be fair, he does succeed in his quest, but the ending leaves it all ambiguous. Make of that what you will.]]
* Jake from ''VideoGame/RideToHellRetribution'' always solves his problems in ridiculously complex and needlessly brutal ways. At one point, he murders several truckers to steal their truck, runs over two dozen police officers, and blows up a power plant with the truck and kills everyone inside just to cut the power to an electric fence that was in his way. The story treats him as, at worst, an AntiHero.
* This trope applies to the version of Music/FiftyCent portrayed in ''VideoGame/FiftyCentBloodOnTheSand''. Despite presumably being a multimillionaire he uses the fact that he wasn't paid for a concert as justification for shooting, exploding and murdering his way through an already war-torn country to try and recover a jewel-encrusted human skull. He behaves like a foul-mouthed thug at all times and is [[JerkAss rude and threatening to every character he meets]], even the ones who are trying to help him. The game has a special button just for spewing profanity at his victims. At the end he [[spoiler:recovers the skull, sticks a cigar in its teeth and calls it an ugly bitch]].
* The title character of ''VideoGame/HopkinsFBI'' is described as a "modern day hero and full time righter-of-wrongs" on the back of the package. However, the puzzle design regularly requires him to commit crimes for no readily-apparent reason, most frequently [[KleptomaniacHero theft]]. In the first act of the game, the only method to stop a group of bank robbers is to use excessive force by blowing them up in their hideout with a live grenade, which also incinerates all but $20 of the stolen money. Hopkins must then steal the $20 so he can much later use it to pay for a movie ticket. Following this incident, he must [[ShootOutTheLock shoot out his fiancée Samantha's bathroom door lock]] ''before'' he finds out she's been kidnapped, and must steal from her house to solve [[BigBad Bernie Berckson]]'s CriminalMindGames. Doing so also requires vandalism and destruction of property, as part of this involves melting a wax museum statue [[ViolationOfCommonSense in full public view during business hours]] [[spoiler:to reveal the murder victim that Berckson hid inside of it]]. [[spoiler:Finally, the endgame requires Hopkins to create a clone of himself and then murder him, so that the clone, now in Purgatory, can sabotage the machine that Berckson uses to resurrect himself.]]
* Jack Slate, the protagonist of ''VideoGame/DeadToRights'', is implied to be one of the only honest cops remaining on the police force of [[WretchedHive Grant City]], and his motive for the whole game is simply to solve and avenge his father's murder. The gameplay largely consists of getting into deadly OneManArmy gunfights and fistfights in which [[CowboyCop Slate]] can disarm opponents or take them as {{Bulletproof Human Shield}}s, and it is not possible to disarm someone or release a Human Shield non-lethally. Gameplay cannot progress until every criminal shooting at Slate is dead. The result is that he leaves a massive body count in his wake while seeking justice for one man's death. Outside of gameplay, Slate escapes from prison (after being put there for a murder he ''didn't'' commit, mind you) in part by killing a man in cold blood technically guilty only of [[AssholeVictim being an abusive psychopath]] [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals who beat Slate's dog]]. [[spoiler:He also only publicizes the conspiracy behind his father's death after personally killing everyone involved in it, including [[CorruptPolitician the Mayor of Grant City]] and [[DirtyCop its Chief of Police]]. Knowing that a violent power struggle will result from his actions, Slate, having successfully avenged his father, then [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere abandons Grant City to its fate]], deeming the WretchedHive beyond saving.]]
** The version of Jack Slate from the reboot ''Dead to Rights: Retribution'' is explicitly said to be one of the few good cops still on Grant City's force, especially after his father's murder reduces that number by one. His main adversaries are the GAC, a new GCPD unit described as "[[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner judge, jury and executioner]] [[RabidCop all wrapped up in one nasty package]]". However, his OneManArmy efforts to defeat the GAC require him to PayEvilUntoEvil through extrajudicial killing of any GAC officer he encounters, sometimes in shockingly brutal ways. [[https://youtu.be/x8Yq0xxNis0?t=658 One]] possible FinishingMove he can use involves [[{{Kneecapping}} blowing out the victim's knees]], and then executing them when they try to surrender.
* Marche Raidiju from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance''. After finding himself in a fantasy world, he searches for a way home, and the only apparent way back seems to involve turning the entire world back, even though his friends and brother don't want to go. Worth noting that his friends' lives are all worse in their homeworld; Marche's brother Doned cannot walk, for example. Over time, as Marche progresses on his quest, the others come around to his way of thinking and decide to go back, but Marche essentially making the decision for them and instigating a DreamApocalypse rubbed some players the wrong way.
* The Rockstar game ''State of Emergency'' was originally supposed to center around an amoral character who incites riots and freely takes part in destruction, mayhem and death. Rockstar, perhaps in trying to head off controversy, decided to switch the premise to a band of proletariat heroes fighting ForGreatJustice against an evil MegaCorp... Without making any changes to the core gameplay of destroying property and killing hundreds of people. One Website/GameFAQs user review explains the problem quite well:
--> ''Of course, there's some lame attempt at a story to justify killing dozens of law enforcement officers, namely that these are BAD law enforcement officers. They're corrupt law enforcement officers, and they need to die to release the grasp of the corporations on mainstream America in the future. Just like 1984, minus the hair bands. Unfortunately, the story is incredibly poor as it is, and feels only like an afterthought to make people think that the targets of your violence are deserving of it. [[SarcasmMode Like when you throw a grenade into an unquestionably evil-owned restaurant.]]''
* Adam Malkovich of ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'', especially in the English localization. Despite Samus having a great amount of respect for him and calling him a father figure, Adam in turn acts incredibly cold and callous towards her from the moment they first interact. Their dynamic borders on the abusive, as it often seems like he resents Samus for leaving his command years ago, and Samus feels the need to win back his approval. And while that element isn't present in the Japanese script, what is present in both versions is him being overly controlling of her actions, restricting her access to her equipment under threat of getting Federation higher-ups involved in the matter. One of his last acts is to shoot Samus in the back while a hungry Metroid is within arm's reach of her, solely to keep her from going into Sector Zero... as opposed to, you know, asking her nicely: even Samus is aggravated with him by this point, asking him why he didn't just verbally explain the situation instead of incapacitating her. It's quite an accomplishment that he can [[spoiler: [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice himself]] to save Samus]] and still make it seem unforgivably dickish.
* ''Franchise/TombRaider'': Lara Croft, big time (and increasingly so as the series goes on). Between the first and third games, Lara goes from killing endangered species (though they do attack her) and human enemies with a "saving the world" license to killing [=MPs=], security guards, homeless and tribesmen in their own village with the flimsy excuse that she's looking for an artifact. Taken to its limit by the sixth game, where she kills dozens of policemen and security guards, breaks into the Louvre and contaminates evidence in two separate crime scenes. [[NotHelpingYourCase All to clear her name of a single murder]].
** ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' parodies this quite well. With a sketch showing Lara entering a tomb, in which the monsters inside are extremely friendly and are all too willing to politely hand over their treasures. Regardless she shoots everything she sees to oblivion without saying a word. And Yahtzee from ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'' flat out calls her evil.
* The "protagonists" of the movie labyrinths in ''VideoGame/PersonaQ2NewCinemaLabyrinth'' are quite questionable. [[InvokedTrope Which is the whole point]], as the idea is to ''derail'' these movies into something with a sane moral code [[spoiler:and they are aspects of [[ObliviouslyEvil Nagi's]] own inability to see her own problems as well as Hikari's borderline suicidal self-loathing.]]
** The first movie is a superhero movie, but the superhero in question is a figure resembling Kamoshida. While he is not a rapist like the real one, he hasn't done anything for the city in his movie reality other than terrorizing the citizens and forcing them to worship him.
** The second movie is a dinosaur movie about weak herbivore dinosaurs trying to survive from being preyed by carnivorous dinosaurs. Sounds right and the movie does build up the carnivorous dinosaurs as villains. In reality, the herbivore dinosaurs are [[GreaterScopeVillain Greater-Scope Villains]] that ostracize anyone who doesn't follow them. If you are a dinosaur and tell the HiveMind to fight the carnivores, they will make your life hell.
** The third movie is probably the most questionable. It is a Sci-fi robot movie that has an AI as a protagonist. This should ring red alarms; AIIsACrapshoot. Not only that, the AI is out to remove a robot with personality, whose crime is nothing other than to like flowers and grow emotions. And to top it all off, the AI looks like Ikutsuki, which unbeknown to S.E.E.S at that time, [[spoiler:[[DramaticIrony is exactly as evil as the AI]]]].
* In ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline''[='s=] ''Delta Rising'' expansion, the Kobali are introduced as a peaceful race under attack by a race of brutal conquerors, the Vaadwaur. They quickly prove untrustworthy, however, repeatedly lying to the player about mission-critical information. Also, their method of reproduction, what amounts to {{necromancy}}, has drawn a lot of rape comparisons on ''STO''[='s=] forums, and they have a habit of forcibly retrieving anybody who remembers their previous life and tries to leave. All the while acting HolierThanThou like the Federation on a bad day (see the main franchise entry in Live-Action TV). As a couple posters put it, [[CultureJustifiesAnything they demand respect for their own culture but offer none in return]]. In comparison, discounting their leader Gaul, TheHeavy of the story arc, the Vaadwaur as a whole are really just your standard [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Space Nazis]] (they've drawn many comparisons to the Klingons and TNG-era Romulans and Cardassians, all of whom the Federation managed to have a detente with) and their primary grievance with the Kobali is that the latter are holding thousands of [[HumanPopsicle Vaadwaur Popsicles]] and using the failed tubes, along with Vaadwaur battlefield casualties, for reproductive stock.
* Simon from ''VideoGame/SimonTheSorcerer'' is this. Many things he does are morally questionable, though in the first game he was at least sympathetic to most {{NPC}}s. But as the series progresses he becomes more sexist and intolerable. In fact his very first line (If you don't count the opening credits) is him stating that he's bored, [[EstablishingCharacterMoment so he thinks about putting his dog through the dryer cycle.]]
* ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'': Guybrush Threepwood. is a wacky (sometimes moronic) goofball. His actions have screwed over countless {{NPC}}s throughout the series. In the second game, he nails a salesman in a coffin (Who doesn't get out until 3 months later) just to steal a key, frames an innocent woman for countless crimes (Which were all his to begin with) just to steal her non-alcoholic grog, and steals Wally's monocle, in which listening to Wally while he tries to look for it is just heartbreaking. Subverted when he did make amends for them in each case. He didn't mean to nail the coffin down so hard and freed the salesman in the following game, broke the woman out of prison later on, and gave Wally a replacement monocle sometime after that.
* The titular Pecan Apple of ''VideoGame/BanzaiPecan''. The game claims she is a paragon of justice and heroism, but her actions in the game can hardly be considered heroic. She threatens the guy she claims to love with denial of sex if he so much as kisses the big bad, gets the hots for another guy [[spoiler:who turns out to be her future son]], calls them by derogatory names, and acts like a total jerkass to them (some worse than others).
* Brent Halligan from ''VideoGame/TheMysteryOfTheDruids'' is a mostly ineffective jerkass of a Scotland Yard detective whose time prior to the game's events was spent loafing about, wasting all his money on pizza and gambling, playing practical jokes, and unsuccessfully flirting with his department's data analyst rather than actually trying to solve murder mysteries. As if that didn't already make him unsympathetic enough, his charming actions during the course of the game include [[spoiler:poisoning and robbing a homeless man for change to use a payphone, stealing a French fisherman's expensive rod and bucket just to scrape salt off a ferry, and at the end, ''stabbing the female lead in the stomach'' (not without reason, but this was severe overkill just to screw over the villain).]]
** The game even lampshades Halligan's behavior as 'designated' at several points- basically everybody at Scotland Yard hates him because of his PAST buffoonery, including trying to arrest Prince Charles for the murder of Princess Diana, and making dozens of random long distance calls on his office phone. He also spends a large portion of the game solving puzzles in such unethical ways that it's very easy to imagine everybody he meets later hating him in much the same way that his co-workers already do.
* Valdo, the protagonist of ''VideoGame/SecretsOfDaVinciTheForbiddenManuscript'', is an admitted forger and con artist; he lost his previous job for making a copy of a painting and selling it as the original. He also, depending on player choices, has no problems with breaking and entering, lying, theft, and seducing the woman in whose house he's staying.
* Parodied to a ridiculous degree in ''Failman'', a short point and click where you play as a superhero with InsaneTrollLogic as he causes property (and bodily) damage to save cats, dolls and ducks, robs a bank and blames it on someone at a broken ATM, stops someone from robbing a bank on a movie set and... [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking gives someone a 404 error.]] He's a destructive idiot playing the hero, but it's silly all the same.
* Parodied with Mog/Dungeon Hero X in ''[[VideoGame/ChocobosDungeon Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon]]''. Despite titling himself/claiming he's a hero, stepping on a Duelling Trap title can sometimes spawn Robber Hero X (literally just him under a different name), who can steal from Chocobo and dash quickly (by moving 2 times faster than normal) while rubbing it in your face. [[{{Hypocrite}} This comes from someone who gets upset if you steal the thief memory (or subsequent items) off him,]] writes a damming letter to you should the memory reach level 8 (the max job level), and doesn't do any true heroics in-game.
* Pick a protagonist from the ''VideoGame/WhackYour'' series. Any of them. Though arguably justified, since the whole series runs on CatharsisFactor for those frustrated with their jobs, their teachers, or their computers.
* Chin from ''VideoGame/HongKong97''. After "crime rate skyrockeded" [sic] when people from China moved to Hong Kong, apparently the best solution the government could come up with is hire Creator/BruceLee's relative to single-handedly wipe out China's entire population. Likely including children, since it matches up with the "1.2 billion" goal the game gives. The game still treats him as some kind of hero for this.
* Patroklos Alexander from ''VideoGame/SoulCaliburV'' is shown killing an innocent man simply because he "looks pale and filthy" and ''might'' be a Malfested, and then smugly mentioning there's no way to prove it within the first six minutes of the Story Mode. He's a bigoted {{Jerkass}} [[spoiler:whose rejection of his sister ''after she saves his life'' causes her to fall under the control of Soul Edge]], as well as a {{Hypocrite}} who blindly obeys the orders of the {{Big Bad}}s despite saying he follows his own fate. Making matters worse is that his CharacterDevelopment is so scattershot that the fans barely recognize it, as well as the fact that [[spoiler:he gets away with killing his sister due to an AssPull of epic proportions]]. On character popularity polls post-launch, Patroklos was ''dead last'' of the "major" characters and generally reviled among quite literally the entire playerbase. It was so bad ''VideoGame/SoulCaliburVI'' hits the reset button so Patroklos has yet to come into existence [[spoiler: and revealing the timeline where he exists as his above mentioned personality was an explicit BadFuture that horrifies his aunt Cassandra, who swears she won't let it play out that way]].
* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles4:'' Captain Morgen (an NPC) is depicted as being wise and kind, despite him being fully aware that [[spoiler:his ship is PoweredByAForsakenChild and that the child will be used as a FantasticNuke to destroy the enemy's capital without warning]]. He never shows any moral reservations about any of this. When the player characters find out, they do have some reservations, but only a DeusExMachina stops them from completing the plan.
* Morgana from ''VideoGame/Persona5''. The game paints him as an ideal hero [[spoiler: and he was created as a manifestation of mankind's hope]], but yet there are many times in which he acts smug and uncaring towards his teammates, especially [[JerkassToOne towards Ryuji]]. The worst part is that Morgana ''never'' gets called out for his treatment of Ryuji, as it is meant to be PlayedForLaughs, but when it's the other way around, [[DesignatedMonkey the game paints Ryuji in the wrong]] and the other Phantom Thieves call him out for it. Especially notorious in this regard is when [[spoiler: Morgana runs away due to insecurity that Futaba is a better nav than him and an off-hand comment from Ryuji on the matter, and puts Haru, who hadn't even fully awakened to her Persona's powers yet, in danger in the Metaverse purely for the sake of protecting his pride. Despite all of this, Morgana learns nothing from the experience and goes back being the smug jerk he was before throwing a tantrum and leaving. The worst part is that everyone blames Ryuji for Morgana leaving, but they don't bat an eye when Morgana openly insults Ryuji in front of everyone after coming back]]. Despite all of this, Morgana is meant to be seen as heroic and someone to be sympathized with.
* ''VideoGame/BookOfMarioThousandsOfDoors'''s prequel, ''Book of Mario 64'', invokes this with Mario. Throughout the adventure, Mario does many questionable and sometimes downright ''evil'' actions, but is still treated as the hero in the narrative and by the Stellarvinden, who encourage him to keep going. [[spoiler:This foreshadows the twist that Browser is a HeroAntagonist trying to save the world and Mario is being possessed by the Stellarvinden to start the War.]]
* The protagonists from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII'', particularly Snow, get utterly ''torn apart'' by [[WebVideo/TheSpoonyExperiment Spoony]] for being this during his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ys9YNgBE28 two and a half hour slamming of the game]]. Spoony constantly notes how while the protagonists just wholesale slaughter enemy soldiers without hesitation or regret and constantly destroy and blow things up (without caring who's inside, enemy or civilian) without even really knowing why they're doing it beyond vague motivations, while said soldiers are portrayed rather sympathetically as people who are trying to do what they think is right, are genuinely trying to protect Cocoon from a very real threat, [[VillainHasAPoint have a very valid reason to be trying to stop the protagonists]], and even do their best to limit collateral damage and take their enemies alive.
--> '''Spoony:''' Whatever. The "good" guys have to escape on their own ship because their fight with Bartandelus caused catastrophic damage making the entire place explode, taking with it hundreds of soldiers and innocent technicians just doing their jobs protecting Cocoon from these murderous psychopaths...
* ''{{VideoGame/Paperboy}}'': The Paperboy forces non subscribers to subscribe by delivering papers to them anyway...through their windows.
* In the video game adaptation of ''Film/DennisTheMenace'', Dennis kills a little girl on a swing at one point.
* The Eight Legends from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade''. In [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade the previous game]], the Eight Legends come across as an underused plotline since we learn humans began the Scouring (an ancient war against the dragons) for no known reason after generations of peaceful coexistence but none of the characters seriously question the continent's reverence for the eight warriors who brought the decisive victory. ''Blazing Blade'' has two of them appear as characters. Athos, who even joins the party, is never treated as anything but a wise and knowing mentor figure, and Braimmond, though unsettling, is still sympathetic. Nobody, not even the ''dragons'', questions them about being heroes of the aggressor side, not even to ask "did you have a good reason?"
* ''VideoGame/TheFrontier'': General Blackthorne is made out to be a noble and compassionate military leader, while General Lee Oliver is described as a warmonger. However, for such a 'compassionate' man who 'cares about his men', Blackthorne is the first to advocate for euthanising the injured soldiers outside of Helios rather than attempting to render any medical aid, will execute any soldier who tries to leave the Frontier, and sends an entire squad to rescue one captive soldier then claims he didn't care a whole lot for the soldiers in question when many of them ended up being killed in the process of that rescue mission. So he's not quite as saintly as the story wants to make him look.
* ''VideoGame/TheTownWithNoName'': The Man With No Name barely does anything that can be considered heroic. Most of time, he just dicks around doing nothing and doesn't even look for his sister, which is supposedly the reason why he is in The Town With No Name in the first place. He is a jackass to everyone he meets in the game and he even has the option to ''[[TooDumbToLive attempt to kill the Clint Eastwood expy]]''. When you get the alternate ending, he shoots a child just for [[{{Film/Shane}} getting his name wrong]].

* The Argon Federation in ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X3: Albion Prelude]]''. We're supposed to think they're the good guys, even though, for all the information the game gives us, the [[SpaceColdWar Terran Conflict]] turning into a hot war was entirely their fault: an Argon character from ''X3: Reunion'' suicide-bombed Earth's Torus Aeternal, killing millions of Terrans instantly (let alone the people killed by [[ColonyDrop deorbiting debris]]). This was a 30th century equivalent of [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror 9/11]] taken UpToEleven; the Terrans' current RoaringRampageOfRevenge is self-defense.

* The Railroad of ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' are a loose group of operatives, scientists and idealistic Wastelanders working together to ensure the liberation of Institute [[ArtificialHuman Synths]], but they entirely dedicate their efforts to helping Synths when frankly everybody in the Commonwealth can use a hand - their best operative, Deacon, laments that even from a purely pragmatic standpoint, it denies the Railroad valuable resources and favours it could be owed in return and makes preaching their message of human/synth co-existence all the harder as few Wastelanders have any reason to trust them. Not to mention how extreme they can be in dealing with their enemies, as whether they're aware of it or not [[spoiler:the Brotherhood's CoolAirship, the ''Prydwen'' has children aboard, and your final mission with them has you sneaking aboard and rigging it to explode]], plus Railroad [=NPCs=] will fire upon Institute heavies, scientists and civilians with equal aplomb. What makes it particularly noteworthy of their behavior is that all of the members of the Railroad seem to have unquestionable faith in your decisions.

* Adam, of ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'', became this for about 90% of players. Samus is treated as being in the wrong for leaving her command prior to the start of the game, and the events of the game are supposedly a means of redeeming herself, but the game never explains why [[InformedWrongness quitting a job she disliked was some kind of irreparable black mark]]. Despite supposedly viewing Samus as like a surrogate daughter, he then treats her with emotions that vary from callous disregard to outright abusive behavior. He threatens to court-martial Samus if she disobeys him, despite her being an independent agent (and "disobeys", to Adam, evidently includes "uses any kind of equipment I have not explicitly authorized you to use, even if it's protective gear"). One of his last acts is to shoot Samus in the back while a hungry Metroid is within arm's reach of her, solely to keep her from going into Sector Zero... as opposed to, you know, asking her nicely. It's quite an accomplishment that he can [[spoiler: [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice himself]] to save Samus]] and still make it seem unforgivably dickish.
* ''Franchise/TombRaider'': Lara Croft, big time (and increasingly so as the series goes on). Between the first and third games, Lara goes from killing endangered species (though they do attack her) and human enemies with a "saving the world" licence to killing [=MPs=], security guards, homeless and tribesmen in their own village with the flimsy excuse that she's looking for an artefact. Taken to its limit by the sixth game, where she kills dozens of policemen and security guards, breaks into the Louvre and contaminates evidence in two separate crime scenes. [[NotHelpingYourCase All to clear her name of a single murder]].

* In ''Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms'', you are straight up killing people. No joke.

* The Eight Legends from ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade''. In [[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBindingBlade the previous game]], the Eight Legends come across as an underused plotline since we learn humans began the Scouring (an ancient war against the dragons) for no known reason after generations of peaceful coexistence but none of the characters seriously question the continent's reverence for the eight warriors who brought the decisive victory. ''Blazing Blade'' has two of them appear as characters. Athos, who even joins the party, is never treated as anything but a wise and knowing mentor figure, and Braimmond, though unsettling, is still sympathetic. Nobody questions them about being heroes of the aggressor side, not even to ask "did you have a good reason."

* The protagonist of ''Road Avenger'', who causes what is probably millions of dollars in collateral damage and kills a few innocent people in his attempt to avenge the death of his wife, which was caused by him swerving into a rock in the desert to avoid the chaotic biker villains.

* Jack Slate, the protagonist of ''VideoGame/DeadToRights'', is implied to be one of the only honest cops remaining on the police force of [[WretchedHive Grant City]], and his motive for the whole game is simply to solve and avenge his father's murder. The gameplay largely consists of getting into deadly OneManArmy gunfights and fistfights in which [[CowboyCop Slate]] can disarm opponents or take them as {{Bulletproof Human Shield}}s, and it is not possible to disarm someone or release a Human Shield non-lethally. Gameplay cannot progress until every criminal shooting at Slate is dead. The result is that he leaves a massive body count in his wake while seeking justice for one man's death. Outside of gameplay, Slate escapes from prison (after being wrongfully incarcerated, mind you) in part by killing a man in cold blood technically guilty only of [[AssholeVictim being an abusive psychopath]] [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals who beat Slate's dog]]. [[spoiler:He also only publicizes the conspiracy behind his father's death after personally killing everyone involved in it, including [[CorruptPolitician the Mayor of Grant City]] and [[DirtyCop its Chief of Police]]. Knowing that a violent power struggle will result from his actions, Slate, having successfully avenged his father, then [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere abandons Grant City to its fate]], deeming the WretchedHive beyond saving.]]

* Jack Slate, the protagonist of ''VideoGame/DeadToRights: Retribution'', is said to be one of the few good cops still on Grant City's force, especially after his father's murder reduces that number by one. His main adversaries are the GAC, a new GCPD unit described as "[[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner judge, jury and executioner]] [[RabidCop all wrapped up in one nasty package]]". However, his OneManArmy efforts to defeat the GAC require him to PayEvilUntoEvil through extrajudicial killing of any GAC officer he encounters, sometimes in shockingly brutal ways. [[https://youtu.be/x8Yq0xxNis0?t=658 One]] possible FinishingMove he can use involves [[{{Kneecapping}} blowing out the victim's knees]], and then executing them when they try to surrender.

** The game even lampshades Halligan's behavior as 'designated' at several points- basically everybody at Scotland Yard hates him because of his PAST buffoonery, including trying to arrest the Queen for the murder of Princess Diana, and making dozens of random long distance calls on his office phone. He also spends a large portion of the game solving puzzles in such unethical ways that it's very easy to imagine everybody he meets later hating him in much the same way that his co-workers already do.

* Jack Slate, the protagonist of ''VideoGame/DeadToRights: Retribution'', is said to be one of the few good cops still on Grant City's force, especially after his father's murder reduces that number by one. His main adversaries are the GAC, a new GCPD unit described as "[[JudgeJuryAndExecutioner judge, jury and executioner]] [[RabidCop all wrapped up in one nasty package]]". However, his OneManArmy efforts to defeat the GAC require him to PayEvilUntoEvil through extrajudicial killing of [[WhatMeasureIsAMook any GAC officer he encounters]], sometimes in shockingly brutal ways. [[https://youtu.be/x8Yq0xxNis0?t=658 One]] possible FinishingMove he can use involves [[{{Kneecapping}} blowing out the victim's knees]], and then executing them when they try to surrender.

* Jack Slate, the protagonist of ''VideoGame/DeadToRights: Retribution''. A detective, allegedly. Apparently one of the few good cops still on Grant City's force, especially after his father's murder reduces that number by one. But, well, let's have it in Slate's own words, with a response from WebVideo/{{Retsupurae}}'s slowbeef:
--> '''Jack Slate''' [voiceover]: I've seen some shit before ... but never anything like the GAC [a new GCPD unit]. Whoever these guys were, they weren't interested in arrests or interrogations. They were judge, jury and executioner all wrapped up in one nasty package.
--> '''slowbeef''' [giggling throughout the above]: That is ''you!'' He said that with like not even a hint of irony!
** 'Enjoy,' from the same LP, [[https://youtu.be/x8Yq0xxNis0?t=658 this little cutscene]]. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!

* The title character of ''VideoGame/HopkinsFBI'' is described as a "modern day hero and full time righter-of-wrongs" on the back of the game package and his fellow law enforcers congratulate him for his work. In reality, Hopkins is a buffoon who botches a hostage negotiation, commits several crimes of his own such as [[KleptomaniacHero theft]] and vandalism, fails to follow proper law enforcement procedure at any point, and gets several innocents killed from his own stupid mistakes. This culminates in him falling for the most obvious trap imaginable [[spoiler:and accidentally killing his own girlfriend as a result]].
** In the WebVideo/{{Retsupurae}} video {{MST}} series for this game, the video where the spoiler-hidden event happens is actually called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3jIviLRvQU&index=4&list=PLo4M1tlpv9rv1Pg9hm8KOuYksb3pCPGcZ "Our Hero, Ladies and Gentlemen."]]

* Mike in the WebGame ''Creepo's Tales: Chopping Mall''. While he does want to solve the mystery of the parking-lot disappearances, it's explicitly out of pragmatism (the fame would give him enough publicity to help his failing business) rather than altruism. And in-game - his actions include breaking and entering, [[spoiler:poisoning a business rival's clerk '''''twice''''', and stealing classified police intel]]. Oh, and in the ending? [[spoiler:After learning that the aforementioned rival is responsible for the disappearances - in order ToServeMan - Mike kills said rival in self-defense... then invokes SlasherSmile and ultimately serves '''''his''''' body parts to '''''Mike's''''' customers, making the "hero" literally no different from the cannibalistic SerialKiller.]]

* Valdo, the protagonist of ''VideoGame/SecretsOfDaVinciTheForbiddenManuscript'', is an admitted forger and con artist; he lost his previous job for making a copy of a painting and selling it as the original. He also, depending on player choices, has no problems with breaking and entering, lying, theft, and seducing the woman in whose house he's staying. But he's the hero and a major KarmaHoudini in the end.
* Both Dante and Vergil in ''VideoGame/DMCDevilMayCry'' start off as this. Dante is portrayed as a Jerkass who is [[TheHedonist more interested in having sex]] and [[BloodKnight killing demons]] than helping out humanity. Vergil treats humans like lesser animals, remorselessly shoots [[spoiler:Lilith and her child]] when she is completely defenseless, [[spoiler:and plans to enslave humanity after Mundus is disposed of]]. Dante eventually gets better through CharacterDevelopment, while that last action of Vergil's [[spoiler:causes the game to declare him deserving of a righteous ass-beating, which Dante is happy to provide]].

* Patroklos Alexander from ''VideoGame/SoulCaliburV'' is shown killing an innocent man simply because he "looks pale and filthy" and ''might'' be a Malfested, and then smugly mentioning there's no way to prove it within the first six minutes of the Story Mode. He's a bigoted {{Jerkass}} [[spoiler:whose rejection of his sister ''after she saves his life'' causes her to fall under the control of Soul Edge]], as well as a {{Hypocrite}} who blindly obeys the orders of the {{Big Bad}}s despite saying he follows his own fate. Making matters worse is that his CharacterDevelopment is so scattershot that the fans barely recognize it, as well as the fact that [[spoiler:[[KarmaHoudini he gets away with killing his sister]] due to an AssPull of epic proportions]]. On character popularity polls post-launch, Patroklos was ''dead last'' of the "major" characters and generally reviled among quite literally the entire playerbase. It was so bad ''VideoGame/SoulCaliburVI'' hits the reset button so Patroklos has yet to come into existence [[spoiler: and revealing the timeline where he exists as his above mentioned personality was an explicit BadFuture that horrifies his aunt Cassandra, who swears she won't let it play out that way]].

* Mike in the WebGame ''Creepo's Tales: Chopping Mall''. While he does want to solve the mystery of the parking-lot disappearances, it's explicitly out of pragmatism (the fame would give him enough publicity to help his failing business) rather than altruism. And in-game - his actions include breaking and entering, [[spoiler:poisoning a business rival's clerk '''''twice''''', and stealing classified police intel]]. Oh, and in the ending? [[spoiler:After learning that the aforementioned rival is responsible for the disappearances - in order ToServeMan - Mike kills said rival in self-defense... then invokes SlasherSmile and ultimately serves '''''his''''' body parts to '''''Mike's''''' customers, making the "hero" literally NotSoDifferent from the cannibalistic SerialKiller.]]

* Parodied to a ridiculous degree in ''Failman'', a short point and click where you play as a superhero with InsaneTrollLogic as he causes property (and bodily) damage to save cats, dolls and ducks, robs a bank and blames it on someone at a broken ATM, stops someone from robbing a bank on a movie set and... [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking]] gives someone a 404 error. He's a destructive idiot playing the hero, but it's silly all the same.

* ''VideoGame/{{Wandersong}}'': Audrey, despite being TheChosenOne of the goddess, is a pathological narcissist out to kill everything so that whatever survives will worship her. Justified, as the goddess wasn't choosing a Savior - they were choosing ''The Destroyer'' of the old, corrupted universe.

* ''VideoGame/{{Wandersong}}'': Ashley, despite being TheChosenOne of the goddess, is a pathological narcissist out to kill everything so that whatever survives will worship her. Justified, as the goddess wasn't choosing a Savior - they were choosing ''The Destroyer'' of the old, corrupted universe.

* Both Dante and Virgil in ''VideoGame/DMCDevilMayCry'' start off as this. Dante is portrayed as a Jerkass who is [[TheHedonist more interested in having sex]] and [[BloodKnight killing demons]] than helping out humanity. Virgil treats humans like lesser animals, remorselessly shoots [[spoiler:Lilith and her child]] when she is completely defenseless, [[spoiler:and plans to enslave humanity after Mundus is disposed of]]. Dante eventually gets better through CharacterDevelopment, while that last action of Vergil's [[spoiler:causes the game to declare him deserving of a righteous ass-beating, which Dante is happy to provide]].